The Sixth Day of May

Yesterday on our walk home from voting in the provincial election I took this really bad phone photo of a beautiful tree covered in white blossoms. What happened to those flowers? At least you can see how green everything is. Or was. I will get to that.

Then I look a VIDEO of some yellow and red tulips. You will have to trust me when I tell you they were lovely. But they just stood there doing nothing, so the video was boring and I deleted it. Stupid phone with its little buttons.

The election results last night were surprising, to say the least, but very, very gratifying for the gazillions of people who have voted ‘other than P.C.’ for years and years with no hope in hell of changing anything. And yeah, that would include me. The Conservatives did not even make official opposition, and the NDP party has a majority. We were so over due for a change. Let’s hope it’s a good one.

Well before Christmas last year W took his truck to a guy who does body work to have his rusted fenders and things worked on. Obviously I’m fuzzy on the details. What I do know is that he was told to take his time, keep it as long as he wanted, there was no hurry to get it done. Six months later we finally have the truck back and W can stop driving my car.

This is our garage yesterday, with a big empty space on the left where the truck parks. W is out driving it somewhere. And there’s my car, barricaded behind many heavy things. It’s so wonderful to have it all to myself again.  What the hell??

And this! THIS is this morning, taken from my kitchen window, because I’m not going out in THIS. It started snowing around midnight and hasn’t stopped. Yep, we often get snow in May. It will all be gone in a day or two, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying. I wonder how those tulips are doing.

And W has gone off to his appointment to get the summer tires put on his truck.

Gawd I love this place.

Leaving

 

Winter seemed reluctant to release its hold.  There was nothing green yet anywhere I looked, and the air stayed cold until well past mid day.  Sometimes the sun would break through the grey mist with a half-hearted attempt at cheering up the sad and dismal countryside , but all that brown was discouraging,  and day after day it seemed to simply give up without a fight.

No, come back!  I wanted to shout at it.  Try harder.  Winter is an asshole, you can make it go away.  But the sun doesn’t listen to anyone.

Those last few bleak days I spent hesitantly preparing to leave, because I was reluctant too.  Remiss to walk away from a life that had become impossible, but which remained, in spite of everything, still strangely comforting in its familiarity.   Afraid, wary, hanging back,  I kept searching for one good reason not to go.  There were reasons, but in the end,  none of them were good enough.

A shrill whistle sounded in the distance and the tracks grumbled and shook as a numbing north wind whipped stray locks of hair across my face and into my eyes, some of the long strands sticking to the tears that kept stubbornly falling no matter how many times I brushed them away.  My ticket to freedom was crushed and broken in one clenched fist.   The other one dragged my heavy bag across the platform.   And then I boarded the southbound train.  With all my might and resolve I resisted the backward pull and in my head I wiped the slate clean.

I felt as stubborn as the sun.  Strong and steady and enduring.   Soon I’d be ready to shine again.

The Speakeasy at Yeah Write # 157 – include the following sentence as the FIRST line in your submission: “Winter seemed reluctant to release its hold.”

Effective Interpretive Dance

I can’t say from personal experience that this works, but I’m going to keep the option in mind.  Being cross-eyed and green probably helps too.  This guy has a lot going for him.

Yesterday a very nice lady asked me what lenses she could purchase for her glasses to enable her to see across the room in dim light.  She did not want to hear that there is no such thing and that we did not have magical optical solutions for this particular problem.  Try brighter light bulbs.  Or a miners hat.  Or get off your ass and go closer to whatever it is you’re trying to see in the dark. I didn’t say any of these things out loud but I’m working on my dance moves to get this kind of message across.

Perhaps I will be retiring sooner than I think.

Not Your Average Hot Spring

Trifecta: this weekend’s prompt.

As you know, Trifecta has a history of dedicating the
entire month of October to Halloween. We’re kicking it off early and easy with
this prompt:

You’ve found some old books. On page 3 of one of the books,
this illustration appears.

Give us the 33 words that follow this illustration. What happens
next?

Well?

DID IT WORK??

Harry checked the brochure.

All tension and worry washed away, it said.

Mind and body relaxed, muscles soothed.

Detoxified.  Blemish free.

Turned you swamp green, Gordie!

So……

Hell YEAH!

*****************************

I have missed the deadline for this prompt and the challenge is closed so I can’t link up, (yes I am a procrastinating idiot) but I’m posting it purely for my own amusement anyway.  Cuz I really like the picture.

Something in the Air

Woman sneezing (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have good news and bad news.  The good news is:

1.  There’s green grass here.  Really!  I saw some.

2.  The snow has all but disappeared where I live.  All that’s left is what remains of our backyard snow mountain.  And it’s looking pretty pathetic.

3.  Today it rained!  You might even say poured!  For roughly  45 seconds.  Hey, it’s a start.

4.  The wind picked up and blew stuff everywhere.  Sorry,  I can’t remember why I think that’s good news.

5. I now have two days off in a row.  Be still my heart.

Spring-ing (Photo credit: mountain_doo2)

 

 

The bad news is:

1.  My eyes are itchy and weepy.

2.  My sinuses are giving me grief and we will soon be out of kleenex if this keeps up.

3.  I am trying to sneeze my face off.

4.  My throat feels all scratchy.

5.  Snow mold is brutal.

It seems like such a shame to have to close all the windows when the weather is finally getting nice.  I go through this to some degree every spring.  I look a mess for several days and then suddenly, as fast as it comes, it goes.

Allergic rhinitis – harbinger of spring.  I would prefer birds, actually.  But whatever heralds spring this year is fine with me – I’ll take it and be glad.

 

 

A Songbird for St. Patricks Day

Green beer on St. Patrick’s Day (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sunday, beautiful Sunday.  After six days of work, I get to rest on the seventh. Today there will be no talk of the weather.  Oh, except for this – W flew off to BC yesterday and sent me the following text:

Made it okay.  Beautiful here!  No snow, green grass!

Men can be so heartless and cruel.  I sent him a text back suggesting he buy us a house there. I hope he gets rained on. And then I hope the rain heads east and some green things happen here at last.

My grandfather on my mother’s side of the family had roots in Ireland, so I always think of him on the 17th of March.  I don’t think you have to be Irish to celebrate St. Patrick’s day, you just have to be okay with green beer.

As so often happens when I spend time on YouTube looking for something specific (in today’s case Irish or Celtic music) I get completely sidetracked to the point where it’s like that degrees of separation game and even I can’t remember what brought me to wherever I ended up.  Which at this particular moment in time would be with Chris de Burgh.

Chris de Burgh (born Christopher John Davison, 15 October 1948) is an Argentinian born British-Irish singer-songwriter. He is most famous for his 1986 love song “The Lady in Red“, which reached number-one in Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Norway, and the United Kingdom.  (Wikipedia)

Too bad he didn’t sing Lady in Green;  but this song is close enough.  It’s a lovely tribute to Eva Cassidy.  Hope it doesn’t make you cry in your Irish beer.

 

I heard a voice so pure and easy, a songbird singing for me,
I had no choice, only to listen, and surrender to her world;
And she will fly over the rainbow,
She will walk in fields of gold,
And when she sings from the high walls of Heaven,
Will the angels cry like me?

At first alone, then with hundreds around me,
Enchanted by her song,
But as the day is done, and the darkness is falling,
The songbird sings no more;

And now she flies over the rainbow,
And she walks in fields of gold,
And when she sings from the high walls of Heaven,
Will the angels cry like me?

And when she sings from the high walls of Heaven,
Will the angels cry like me, will the angels cry like me?

It’s Never Too Early (or Too Late) for Christmas Cheer

Christmas in the post-War United States (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What a long day this has been – and it’s not over yet.  Not until I’ve finished my mug of Christmas Cheer.  I’m rewarding myself for making poor choices.  I decided tonight would be a good time to pick up some stocking stuffers, after working until 8:00 p.m. Most sane people would have headed home by then, wouldn’t you think?  It is now going on eleven o’clock.  I’ve been out there mingling with the crazies.

Actually it’s nobodys fault but my own for taking so long.  I have a really hard time making up my mind about things, as if the fate of the world rests on my decisions.  As long as there’s something funny and something to rot their teeth, kids are generally happy with whatever they get.  I know that.  But it doesn’t stop me from agonizing over things like tooth-brush colors.  Because God Forbid someone should get a green one when they prefer purple.

Even though they come in only one color, I hope no one is going to ask me for a hippopotamus this year.  I’d gladly sing the song for them though.  This has been one of my favourite Christmas songs forever.  No Christmas is complete without hearing it at least once, preferably by someone other than yours truly.  Enjoy.

Camera Shy Magpie

It’s amazing what two days of rain can do.  Get things really wet, turn things green, make the air smell breathtakingly fresh and clean.

First thing this morning, and I really do mean first thing, around six a.m. before anyone else in the neighborhood or their right minds had even considered getting out of bed, I looked out the bedroom window and saw a magpie strutting about on the back lawn.

It seemed like a brilliant idea at the time to get out there and get some pictures of him.  I don’t know for sure if it’s a “him” or not because male and female magpies look a lot alike, with the female having a more greyish white hood than the male.  Also if there are two of them, the female is the one that’s bossy and aggressive and the male is the one running away.  I’ve noticed that kind of behaviour in other species as well (not mentioning any by name.)

So, there I was, in the backyard sitting in a lawn chair with my coffee in one hand and my camera in the other and the magpie nowhere to be seen.   It’s a little chilly here at six o’clock in the morning.  The ground was still wet, there were little sparrows whipping about, traffic noises to remind me that I’m far from the wilderness, a light breeze and a silent wind chime.  It’s rather boring sitting around waiting for a magpie that refuses to materialize, so I put my inner detective to work to find out what’s up with the stupid wind chime.

And this is what I discovered on the ground beneath it.  With a little bit of rotted string attached.  They really should consider making these things with fishing line to withstand Canadian winters.

The bird feeder is almost empty.  The bird house (on the left up there and pretty much completely cut out of the picture by the side of the garage, is being used by some kind of little birds who are busily coming and going.  The patch of lawn that the meter movers destroyed has approximately four blades of green grass on it struggling to survive.

That magpie is always around when I don’t have my phone or camera handy – on the lawn, on the garage roof, in the bushes, hopping along the fence.  I swear I am not making this up.  But after about twenty minutes of impatient waiting around and with an empty cup and a cold butt I decided to come back inside where it’s warm.  Nope, I would never succeed as a bird watcher.  I’m also having serious second thoughts about this early rising thing.  For one thing, it eliminates the excuse of ‘not enough time’ when I don’t feel like going for a walk.  There’s still hours left in my morning for magpie stalking and other worthwhile pursuits.  Like windchime repair.  Or a nap.  Can my day get any more fascinating I wonder?

Stay tuned for more heart stopping developments.  That magpie could return at any moment.  And I might even be awake to see it and capture it on film.  Or not.  I hope the suspense doesn’t kill you.

D is for Damp

This is the scene that greeted me out the front door a couple of days ago.  If it wasn’t for bringing the paper in I would have been quite happy to just leave the damned door closed.  I’m not even going to talk about the S word in April.  What we’re dealing with here is a kind of sem-solid dense white rain. It’s annoying to slog through but it dissipates quickly.  Although not before some of it’s been soaked up by the bottom couple of inches of your pant legs and seriously messed with your shoes.

All this moisture is of course a good thing.  It’s working hard to turn our brown world to green.  The lawn people have been out and about with a similar objective.  All those bags decorating my front lawn are filled with nasty brown crap that they raked up and SORT OF carried away.  Now the bags are awaiting final pick up (which is scheduled for the middle of May but I’m going to pretend I don’t know that.)  Any day now.  That’s my new mantra.

Damp in this instance is merely dank and extremely dewy.  I will not let it be deadening, demoralizing, diminishing or disheartening.  (Why are there so damned many depressing D words??)  Sorry for saying damned again.  But think about it – Damp You!  just doesn’t have the same effect.

D is also for Draw Something, the App that teaches you very quickly that you have absolutely no talent as an artist and should not quit your day job to take up comic strip writing, even though what you have “drawn” is admittedly hilariously funny.  Just not something you’re likely to get paid for.

Here’s what the world outside my front door looked like early this morning.  I really should be venturing a little farther afield, but that would be risking personal dampness.  Because it rained again.  Look into that not so very distant area to the right across the street and you will see GREEN!  The grass is always greener on the other side of the street.  (And also in southwestern Ontario, but I’ve whined about that too much already.)  What this means is that our grass will eventually green up out of embarassment any day now.  I’m paying people to cut it, so damp it all, bring on the damp.  Just not the opaque stuff, please. I’m kind of done with that.

Carson Is Calm and Complaisant

Daily Horoscope:  Alluring is one way to put it. Devastatingly entrancing is another. No matter how you describe it, one thing’s for certain: Your charm is at unheard of levels right now. Go ahead and work it.   

Yep, that would be me.  (And also the cat although he doesn’t have to work so hard at it.)  Good thing too that I’m that damned charming because I haven’t shut up since getting out of bed today.  Really, my sister and I could save the world if anyone would just take the time to listen to us. Here’s my tarot reading for the day if you have any doubts about that.

Your intuition or a sudden insight could be healing or helpful to someone you love in a way you could never have imagined. You may have wild and unusual ideas and inspiration today. Keep an open mind, and don’t be afraid to share information about healing alternatives.

If only we’d communicated better BEFORE I got here, I would have known to leave the twenty odd packets of protein powder shake mix at home because there are two full unopened huge plastic containers full of it here.  The very same stuff.  I don’t think we’ll be able to consume all of it in two weeks, but we made a good start on it this morning. Since then we’ve done pretty much nothing but talk.  We won’t run out of that either.

There was a very heavy frost last night – almost looked like it had rained with everything being so wet, but now the skies are blue and the sun is shining and I’m trying hard to get over being jealous that everything here is already beautiful and green. 

I’m also completely covered in pet hair.  There’s a very friendly dog and three orange cats who will sit on the furniture first and then reluctantly give it up to you so that you can have a turn.  I could probably go through a few lint rollers a day but it would be a losing battle.  Raven is black so I can remember her name and recognize her from her size.  The three cats are harder to figure out.  They are Harry, Carson and Baby Rastus.  I have no idea which is which, even if they’re all standing there staring at me wondering why I’m so clueless.  The picture is of Carson lazing in the sun, but I know that only because I asked.  I like his laid back attitude and think we could all learn from it.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I tasted peanut butter pretzels for the first time and was pleasantly surprised at how good they are!  They’re probably even vaguely good for you if you don’t consume too much beer at the same time.  Or too much pet hair.  I don’t think there’s any nutritional value in that.  I’d ask Carson but he’s in some kind of cat trance until the sun goes down.